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Pink State

O’Sullivan’s First Law states that any organization or enterprise that is not expressly right wing will become left wing over time. The law is named after British journalist and former National Review editor John O’Sullivan. This is especially ironic as O’Sullivan was forced to abandon most of his right wing positions in order to avoid being purged from National Review. Diseases are often named after a famous victim, but this is the first time the victim named his disease before he contracted it.

Red State is a website that was originally started as sort of a “conservative” alternative to the left-wing blogosphere. I put quotes there because Red State’s brand of conservatism has always been the housebroken type of stuff popular on the Bush wing of the GOP. Like a lot of so-called conservatives in the Bush years, Red State was basically just a cheering section for the Republicans. Whatever Team Bush proposed, Red State branded as “Reaganesque” and “principled conservatism”, especially if it meant killing Muslims.

That probably sounds harsh, but I’m just getting started. Serial plagiarist Ben Domenech, pen for hire Joshua Trevino and the portly proselytizer Erick Erickson saw an opportunity to promote themselves, and maybe lever their popularity with conservative voters, into the careers they thought they deserved. The whole point of Red State was to ball-gargle the establishment, hoping to turn their obsequious rumpswabbery into a Jonah Goldberg lifestyle. The three of them are emblematic of what went wrong with conservatism.

The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) is supposed to be the sane, responsible anti-immigration group of the John Tanton-sphere. Tanton is a former Zero Population Growth activist who bankrolled anti-immigration groups like CIS and FAIR after native American birthrates dropped below replacement.

But now CIS is falling down the same Alt Right pit that Tanton for years has denied courting!

One of the leaders of the “Alt Right,” which is the successor to the White Nationalist movement, which was the successor to the American Nazi movement, is National Policy Institute chairman Richard Spencer, based in Arlington, just like American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell.

Spencer (who totally isn’t a skinhead, as he only shaves the sidesof his head), is hosting some speakers to promote his ideology, including VDARE founder Peter Brimelow, and VDARE contributor Kevin MacDonald. This is the pseudo-intellectual forefront of the alt-right, white-nationalist movement in America.

CIS being reasonable and mainstream has every reason to distance itself from the likes of these. But no: they’re promoting the works of Brimelow and MacDonald, promoting VDARE links and MacDonald’s own writing. CIS wants you to read more of the alt right. CIS is allying with the alt right as part of its extremist anti-immigration ideology.

I’ve gotten criticism in the past for calling out groups like CIS and FAIR. Defenders have held onto CIS though, hoping that Mark Krikorian would keep the group from falling into crazytown. But he has failed. CIS would rather work with the alt right, than bend on their extremist policy of banning all immigration.

And therefore conservatives must stop pretending CIS and FAIR are groups we can work with, since the last thing we need is to poison our movement with the alt right.

The fat dope who posted that nonsense is a good example of the sort of people who infiltrate the organizations that are not “expressly right wing” and turn them into left wing organizations. His primary motivation is signalling his fidelity to the One True Faith by pointing at the nearest heretic and yelling “witch.” Fatty was probably dressed as a vagina down at the Women’s Waddle in Washington. That’s because “principled conservatism” means locking arms with liberals to oppose Trump.

Anyway, you see all the cons used by social justice warriors in that post. There’s guilt by association, the use of the transitive property to link the targeted enemy to some imagined evil and, of course, the demand that the target abandon their position or face being branded a heretic. In this case, it means the very sensible and respectable Mark Krikorian must denounce people he does not know or he and his issues are ruled out of bounds for decent people. Fatty does not have an argument to make. He just wants to curry favor with his fellow lunatics by accusing someone of heresy.

Like all of the sites in the cuck-o-sphere, Red State has seen its traffic collapse over the last year. That’s because they were never expressly conservative. They were always just to the right of the Official Left. As progressives rocketed off into identity politics, all of these guys tagged along behind them, convinced that being a little less enthusiastic for the latest liberal fads was enough to make them “conservative” and keep the good times rolling. As a result, they claim anyone not falling for their act is a Nazi.

Red State becoming Pink State is no surprise as it was never expressly right wing, rather it was just a marketing vehicle for the people who started it. All of them have moved on as the enterprise served its purpose. Now it is being overrun by rotund rodents like Neil Stevens, launching purity campaigns against everyone to their right. It’s a good lesson for those inclined to support the emerging voices out of the Dissident Right. Not all of them are in it for the right reasons so taking any of them at face value is not a good idea.

The primary vice of cuckservatism is virtue signaling. It’s why Trump is Satan to them, because he undermines all of that. It isn’t about conserving anything or making the country great again, it’s about being morally superior to liberals and the dirt people. Even worse is that they have internalized to a large degree the Cathedral definitions of virtue, anti-racism for example.

Right. The first problem is in accepting the premisses of the opposition. On another comment board the other day I brought up the dialog between Buckley and Gore Vidal that was used in the Goldberg book Libs’r the Real Fascists. If instead of acting the way he did and getting upset about being called a crypto-fascist, Buckley had instead shrugged and replied that sharing a stage with a guy like Charles Lindbergh would be more pleasant than having to talk to a fat faggot like Vidal, this business of shaming people like that would have began dying right then and… Read more »

Exactly. Another thing about Goldberg’s book that I found hilarious was he spent a lot of time on the fact the Left does not know its own history. The exact same thing could be said of the Buckley Right. Those regular purges were mostly about memory holing their own past.

The tactical reasoning, I think, was that “we” conservatives could behave like civilized people, and by not stooping to their level, would retain the moral high ground. Back then, they didn’t realize how Leninist the Left, even the apparently nice and reasonable Left, really was. To the Leninist, anything, anything at all — even going deep cover as a “conservative” for years — is acceptable if it furthers the Revolution. The Official Right, and most Americans who would call themselves “conservatives,” still don’t realize that ALL Leftists are Terminators — they can’t be bargained with, they can’t be reasoned with,… Read more »

Looks tactical. It is collective insanity. Vladimir Lenin was spot on brilliant about useful dupes. Look at the vulva hat cat lady protest. Collective insanity loves company, they had a great time, embraced in the warmth of hundreds of thousands of fellow derangement. The human extinction movement has no lack of disciples.

Goldberg remains such a puzzling case. His book Liberal Fascism showed remarkable scholarship, however it seems a solution in search of a problem. The peripatetic John Rivers on Twitter pointed out this. Granted, Dems R Real Racist. So, can we then discuss progressives racist attitudes against white people? At this juncture, Conservatism Inc. goes silent as the tomb. His Never Trump stance also remains incoherent. Dennis Prager had him on his show, and pressed him. When asked if his vote could make the difference between Trump or Hillary becoming president, he averred he would vote Trump. Yet he still clung… Read more »

A dozen years ago or so, I showed up at one of their fundraisers. You could mingle with the writers and ask questions. I was talking with Goldberg and mentioned something about VDare. It was in passing. Goldberg froze. It was like he saw a ghost. He then said, “you should not read that site or have anything to do with it.” He then turned and sprinted away from me. It was at that point I realized that the political class had broke free from its moorings. Even those allegedly on the right were so afraid of being called a… Read more »

I still recall way back in the second term of Bush 43, reading National Review. Therein Goldberg, with visible relief, declared “we lost” the battle on gay marriage, so let’s just get over it. Surrendering marriage, one of the most obviously central values of not only the West but nearly all cultures in human history, proved a relief to Goldberg. Long before SCOTUS put the imprimatur of “law” upon this farce.

I’m utterly convinced had Hillary won, Conservatism Inc. would quickly surrender on everything from the 1st Amendment through the 10th, all in the name of Responsible Republicanism.

“There’s also another thing with Goldberg that is true for a lot of NeverTrump people. They were expecting jobs from the next GOP administration. Jonah’s old lady was looking to land as an under secretary somewhere.”

I usually eschew casting mere nepotistic motives upon people, but it’s getting harder and harder to avoid this conclusion. His wife previously held some position in either the Bush administration or his campaign.

Love it that the Prom was cancelled. I am swinging like a wild pendulum yes/no about attending my Vassar 50th Reunion in June. Several jerky classmates oohed and ahhed at Ms. Streep’s, Vassar ’71, “classy” Golden Globes remarks and want her to “speak” at our event. Another group chartered a bus from Rochester NY to attend the Pussycat Parade (Voluble Vulvas!) last Saturday. I know they will be at Reunion, probably sharing photos of this remarkable occasion, seeing as most of them lack grandchildren to boast about, or even longstanding husbands. The alums I might choose to visit our class… Read more »

I picked up a copy of Liberal Fascism from the library of an old folks home about 4 years ago.
Suffered through about 80 pages and a put it down.
It was boring.
I never returned it, as I didn’t want some old person wasting what little time they had left on this earth reading it.

This certainly dates back to the early days of Buckley, but what was the point of it all? That being virtuous would persuade people to the conservative side? I don’t think it ever really worked, and quickly devolved into a circle jerk which then devolved into a self destruct button that the left could press at its leisure. With the nevertrump crap, what was once a self-defeating circlejerk are now the hard left’s useful idiots.

Since I am one of the victims of the mind fuck that took place back then, I can only view it in retrospect and speculate about how things could have gone differently. I think that a lot of the problem was in the western mindset that came into being after wwii. The country had been in the thrall of the left ever since the great depression, and was just beginning to wake up to the failures of left wing rule when the war bailed out FDR’s government and then you had the gorrillions killed in the holocaust, solidifying a sort… Read more »

yes, we can fight each other in the manner of men in a group who belong together- but kidding (often hurting – just enough to toughen each other up)- Z does this correctly. we all know who the real enemies are: let us bump heads, kick shins, pour cold water on each other, etc- then go back the war.

Were the Founders alive today they would with one possible exception be regarded as altright (not to mention pushing 300 years old). They held very significant differences among one another resulting in personal animosities years later. This is as it should be. It is the left that is bereft of diversity. The broad altright contains within itself the maxim that often times the opposite of a profound truth is another profound truth. The left is not so much the opposite of truth as it is the absence of it, an absence which is vigorously enforced. Man, given a choice between… Read more »

Ronald Reagan, whose bust is on the library shelf of every respectable cuckservative, set the tone. We can be grateful that he recognized — unlike so many public intellectuals of both left and right — that the Soviet Union was teetering on the brink of oblivion and would soon self-destruct. He had the good sense to help its demise by avoiding anything foolish in opposing it. But otherwise, Reagan was at best a rhetorical conservative with the ability to deliver a good line. What did he actually do, or at least try to do, that was genuinely conservative? Despite word… Read more »

Pink State = Cultural Marxists Light.
Won’t be long now, pepe the dirt insurgent is making them more irrelevant by the day. There is no fate worse for closet SJW’s in conservative drag. Anyone want to make bets when these cucks come out of the closet?

Glenn Beck, talk about somebody who has fallen hard into the habits of virtue signaling and his own moral superiority above all else. Every time I see him these days he’s out there shilling for the cathedral.

I think guys like Beck can stagger on because he has built a weird cult that is not harmed by his lunacy. In fact, his troubles probably help keep him stay afloat because he can cast himself as a victim.

Heh, “conservatives.” What have they ever conserved? On a related note, if the Alt-Right, Alt-White, Alt-Whatever ever want to be taken seriously by the kind of folks who can build an effective mass movement, they need to stop pretending to be intellectuals. Actually that’s good advice for “conservatives,” too — there is Reality, and there is Theory, and when the two conflict, Theory must yield. Otherwise, all you’re doing is rationalizing for a paycheck. There is exactly one political principle that doesn’t lead directly to totalitarianism: Equality before the law. Abandon that, and pretty soon all you’re doing is debating… Read more »

“There is exactly one political principle that doesn’t lead directly to totalitarianism: Equality before the law. Abandon that, and pretty soon all you’re doing is debating terminology — is it a concentration camp, a labor camp, or thought reform?”

That is a brilliant formulation, and even usable in leftie company, albeit with care. I’m going to rip it off shamelessly in the future.

I was discussing this with friends the other day and added that we were returning to some insane neo – ottoman millet system where the gays dress one way and have this set of obligations, privileges, and laws; the blacks another; the whites yet another; go on down the list. Our forefathers fought and bled to stop this. Now we’re marching back to the Middle Ages at the double time. This has got to stop.

Problem is, that’s more than likely going to require hurting people and breaking stuff, as opposed to mere argument. Most people really, really shy away from that. The Left far less so than the Right, which probably goes a long way towards why they tend to win out more often.

Vox Popoli posted this a few days ago: “Glenn Reynolds has some sage advice for the Right facing an increasingly deranged Left and squadrons of SJWs resolutely doubling down: Progressives Destroyed Normalcy And Now They’re Shocked Trump Isn’t Normal. Choose the form of your Destructor. But I disagree with the thesis of this piece that people on the right should embrace civility and normalcy. Civility and normalcy are privileges that require a broad consensus. Conservatives have been utter failures at “conserving” these traits. Here’s my take: There’s an old joke about a boy who complains to his mother that his… Read more »

Conservatives have always defined success in relation to the Left. They would win if the Left adopted their ideas.

Trump and an increasing number of people are defining victory as achieving specific agenda items like trade and immigration. if the Left or Right is upset, too bad. They need to deal with that on their own. It’s why both sides of official Washington are in a panic. Their main weapon has been rendered useless and they can’t think and a plan B. To his credit, Trump seems to get this and he is pressing his advantage from the start.

It is astonishing to watch how quickly and successfully Trump is wading through the DC swamp, swinging that machete. In politics, as in sports, if you can press your advantage in a way that keeps the opposition from keeping up, the battle is half won before it begins. It is interesting to see that many of Trump’s initiatives are not really part of the right-left calculation, but instead moves of simple common sense. Legal immigration, not illegal. Push back against Sanctuary Cities–that is, push back against institutional conscious lawlessness. Lobby business to bring jobs home. Was there large scale voter… Read more »

We are seeing a lot of paper tigers go up in flames. The Left evolved to defeat an enemy that was always willing to lose. The Right evolved to negotiate their next surrender to the Left. Trump is plowing through these guys in large part because he dismisses the rules of the game. But, he has also figured out that they are paper tigers. I suspect he is a bit surprised by it. I’m coming around to the idea that Trump may end up doing a ton of things that everyone said were impossible, mostly because they were long overdue… Read more »

The fatal flaw of liberalism, talking in the classical sense not about the progressive left and liberalism in this sense describes modern so-called conservatism, is their belief that reason can solve everything. This leads to disaster because unreasonable people can’t be reasoned with. Evil can’t be reasoned with. Reasoning with the left is what got us here, and what is destroying western civilization.

To me, a large part of it is, don’t accept their talking point or strawman ( ie, the science is settled) , question their premises and point out the obvious. You are right on the money about paper tigers. The left is lazy with their arguments. They’ve gotten away with bullying and farcical constructs for decades, and the media says me too! Behold what happens when a “doer” gets elected. Stuff gets done and moves so fast, all the talkers are left 2 and 3 steps behind and can’t catch up. Love it. ( Pattonesque for sure)

Conway’s “alternative facts” thing was not an error, and was not off-the-cuff. The Left has been labeling assertions as “facts” for years (e.g. global warming). This “alternative facts” thing builds on the “fake news” thing, which keeps the issue front and center, and will serve to demonstrate over time who is more truthful, and it ain’t the MSM.

Beck seems to have a dependent personality disorder. He was the lone voice of reason during his tenure at Crazed News Network,which propelled him to the nascent Fox. He was brash and funny in the early days. He’s an admitted addict,who’s transferred dependence on drugs & alcohol to his public persona, Glenn Beck,Inc,Blazing Truther. He derailed himself that moment he ran Teddy Bears to the illegals pouring into Texas. He fell right into the trap the Obama administration had set-show the sad children,and generous Americans comply with the real agenda-to seed the country with new,improved Democrat voters.

My read on Beck is he is a guy who lacks moderation. If he was going to drink, he was going to be a roaring drunk. If was going to be religious, then he was going find the most extreme expression he could join. What happens is he gets to that terminal point and still cannot find happiness, so he drops it and rockets off on some new crusade. His proselytizing in the campaign went nowhere so he is busy finding a new cause. Whatever that is, he’ll dive into with the zeal of a fanatic.

He’s a revivalist preacher with no core set of values or principles. I’ve listened to him enough to know he makes absolutely no sense. His next move will be to start the Cult of Glen Beck to see how many zombies he can really attract and brainwash.

Yes. They thought they were eliminating an indomitable enemy, they created a legion of warriors. Look where Steve Bannon ended up, look at the Alt-Right, the revolution of the dirt people. I believe Andrew by his example helped to catalyze an entire zeitgeist. He also knew what Podesta and the rest of the vile hedonistic Clinton crime syndicate was involved in. It’s probably why Andrew is dead.

Headline: ‘The US Is No Longer A “Full Democracy” According To The Economist’. Ah, it never was a democracy to begin with. You have to read the “report” to grasp the scope of collective dichotomy here. But what is fascinating is a cuck or a progressive could have written it, and you would be hard pressed to know which did. But then, “what difference does it make at this point”, unquote. What is the best irony here, is it the headline, or is it an economist who calls a Republic a democracy, because if your a true economist the first… Read more »

Seeing as how “The Economist” has been wrong about pretty much everything for the last thirty years, their only remaining function is as a compass pointing South. If the U.S. and the world had done the opposite of what The Economist has advocated over the last few decades, we’d be far, far ahead.

Predicting economics is as about as valid as predicting the climate. They used to call it snake oil.
Seems like the only true economic forecasting is more theory of human activity regarding freedom and tyranny. Like the philosophical insights from Von Misses.

The Economist and the FT are the house organs of the European members of the Davos crowd. It is always interesting to keep up with the thinking of your intellectual enemies. The FT has been reduced to infusing Trump snark and hate into all of their articles, including the gardening section and restaurant reviews. Very tiresome stuff, my rather expensive sub will not be renewed. I guess the upside of seeing how things are going over there, is that they must be absolutely petrified of what is coming their way. Global man lives in mortal fear that their con job… Read more »

I like reading your blog for the same reason I like listening to Chris Plante while driving to work in the morning. You always make me at least smile, if not laugh out loud. This was a great example. I did get a good laugh at the insults. People do not do that enough anymore. I have always believed that one sign of a healthy work environment is that people can bust on each other regularly and everyone understands that it is in good fun and not meant to injure anyone. Anyway, it is funny that somehow I have gravitated… Read more »

I hope Dave of Happy Acres comes back after tmblr shut him down. He was one of my favorites daily reads, like Zman and Vox. He said in an email he was going to take a long Lent by starting early, and start up again after.

Aw shit, I’m just a regular guy. I only truly hope we all come out better for it as people and a country with what is going on today. But thanks, that is a wonderful thing coming from you, you made my day for sure.
You guys are all wicked intelligent and learned people. It’s an honor to have a go at it with you all and reading everyones insights and civilized propriety. It’s what makes being an American a great thing. We are blessed I think.

It is sound Boydd theory. Get inside the enemies OODA Loop. Or Cashus Clay’s strategy to Joe Frasher, “I’ll hit you so many times you’ll think your surrounded” Through history of the medium of broadcast “news” the media is accustomed to the power of controlling the pace and timber of events coming out of the presidential administration. They have enjoyed a certain level of intimidation. Trump has overwhelmed them and gaslights them on a scale they are not equipped nor staffed with to even keep up with. It’s called “Git er done”, it’s called doing the job your hired to… Read more »

PS, TT thats a superb observation you brought up if you don’t mind my saying so. It is incredibly germane to the subject, if for no other reason than it is redefining politics on a level unimaginable even a week ago. It is so dynamic you have to stop and re-orient your critical thinking process. I think it is safe to contend, if you see Trump as some sort of ideological political deplorable beast that must be got rid of, you represent a clear and present danger to the principles of representative process and will of the governed of republican… Read more »

Whatever Team Bush proposed, Red State branded as “Reaganesque” and “principled conservatism”, especially if it meant killing Muslims. A war of attrition is effective, but it’s obvious that’s not what Bush wanted to do, because we didn’t kill nearly enough for it to be effective. I don’t think the numbers we killed even exceeded replacement reproduction. If that was the goal, then who ever came up with it wasn’t very good at math. The war of attrition on Islam is coming, at least in Europe, if not eventually here. That’s what happens to invading armies that don’t bother to bring… Read more »

[…] Conservatives do not succumb directly to the Left; rather, in classic Leftist strategy, they are covertly invaded, divided against themselves, and thus subverted and turned into a vehicle for Leftist ideas. This can be seen in mainstream conservatism through O’Sullivan’s First Law: […]

Hated “red state” upon first hearing of it. It foolishly confirmed the label that the Liberal Media had stuck on “conservatives” in 1992. “Red” was always the color of socialism/communism, and if you weren’t on the left, you had to be some kind of brain dead stupid to adopt that color and make it part of your name.

[…] This is not The Revolutionary Daily. #CuckState is a “Conservative” media outlet. These are the people supposedly sworn to fight off the Leftist Locust horde. Here’s what #CuckState does instead. […]